Response Art Work
Montana Ranch I:
Nevada Creek Ridge
2002
Acrylic on Paper
17" x 8"
Michael Caldwell
SPU Professor Emeritus of Art
Ten miles east of Ovando, a small town in westcentral
Montana, lies this placid prairie scene, give or
take a few trees and clouds. “The title of the painting
refers to a nearby creek,” says just-retired Seattle
Pacific University Professor of Art Michael Caldwell.
“But it may be that I invented the name of the mountain
range.”
When you’re a painter, you get to do that. You also
get to change the world, as it were. Caldwell has
painted the scene often, changing it each time. “Sometimes
there’s more space at the bottom,” he explains.
“Sometimes I bring trees in from other places. Once,
I put in a little creek.” Pointing to this painting, he says,
“Those clouds weren’t there. I brought them in from
someplace else. I removed some trees here and there,
and there were a couple of buildings in the foreground.”
A longtime devotee of Big Sky Country and the
American West, Caldwell has visited this particular
Montana landscape many times. “I don’t recall what it
was that first attracted me to it,” he says. “Maybe it
was just the fact that it is a prairie, flatlike, and then
these two hills stood out, and as you move to the right
there’s a big gap and another set of mountains starts,
so you can see out through the gap.” He pauses, then
continues. “The colors, and the way the trees help
define the shape of the mountains, also attracted me.”
The artist created the painting, which was sold last
year to a private collector, in his Seattle studio from
photographs. “It’s not unlike the way landscape paintings
were done in the 19th century prior to the Impressionists,”
Caldwell, ever the teacher, explains. “The
Impressionists were really the first people to go outdoors
and actually finish works of art outside.”
After 36 years at Seattle Pacific, Caldwell retired in
June 2006 (click here for the story). He has moved with his wife,
Vicki, to their home outside Winthrop, Washington,
where he will continue to paint, among other things,
his vision of the great American West.
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